Questions
by Nisa-chan666
Summary: What are you supposed to do when the man you love kills the woman you love in cold blood? Some hints of Suzaku/Lelouch. Don't like shonen-ai, don't read.


What am I supposed to do? What do you do when you find out that the only man you could ever love shot down the only woman you could ever love in cold blood? What are you supposed to do when he just leaves her amongst the rubble to die? I'm faced with a decision that I can't take without losing one of the most precious people in my life, whichever option I choose. Let him live a free man or let the empire take him, I have to decide what to do with Lelouch with care.

It's well-documented what decision I took. It's the only decision I could take. Anything else and I would be betraying my position as Euphie's knight. It doesn't matter that I failed her before; maybe with this I could redeem myself. At least in her eyes. Or in mine, I can't really say. I have no regrets about what I did. Okay, that's only half the truth. I wish I could have gotten Lelouch to tell me why. He came near to it.  
We were on our way back to the homeland, the Black Rebellion crushed easily with their leader absent from the battle. It was nearing the early hours of the morning and I couldn't sleep; questions and half-shaped statements of anger and regret were spinning behind my eyelids, poking me awake whenever I closed my eyes. I decided that a walk would clear my head, improbable as it seems now and indeed as it seemed at the time. It wasn't until the guard was asking me for my ID that I realised exactly where I was going. Lelouch's cell. No, Zero's cell; at that precise moment I couldn't think of him as Lelouch.  
Holding my ID up, I heard the guard splutter, "Oh, Major Kururugi, forgive me. I didn't recognise you."  
So I entered the containment cell. Despite his situation, Lelouch still managed to carry himself like a prince. He didn't even give me a glance as I enter; his pride refused to give me even that small dignity. It infuriated me.  
"All the things you've done and you can't even look sorry," I said, unintentionally giving my thoughts a voice.  
"Being sorry requires that you believe you've done something wrong," he replied, finally looking at me.  
He somehow managed to pull off looking both dismissive and affectionate at the same time. Looking back, it seems like I wasn't the only one in this relationship to have mixed feelings.  
"What are you doing here?" he asked, head turning again to face the opposite wall.  
"I don't know. I couldn't sleep."  
He laughed. I had heard him laugh many a time before as part of my childhood and as his fellow student, but this was different; there was an imbalance in there that made me sick to my stomach, but it was somehow . . . freer than he'd ever sounded before.  
"You think that's it? And here I thought there was something more behind the pretty face," he said, his voice quiet in the disturbed air.  
"I suppose I wanted you to answer some questions then," I scowled.  
"That's better. More like the Suzaku I knew."  
"I'm still the same Suzaku as I ever was."  
"No. No, you aren't."  
My eyes narrowed.  
"Trust you to play games at a time like this, Lelouch."  
"I'm not. You said it yourself, you've never been motivated by hate before."  
He was right, and it sickened me. I'd never gone into a battle with such a desire to kill before. And the worst thing is that I don't think it will ever go away. As much as I hate him, I love him too. He was my first real friend as a child, the first person who reached out to me when I started at the Ashford Academy; and with that same hand of invitation he killed so many innocent people, soldiers like me who only wanted to protect the people they loved.  
"What was it like?" he asked, in that same quiet, reasonable voice.  
At first, I didn't know what he meant.  
"What was your first taste of hate like?" he repeated.  
"Why does it matter?" I snapped.  
"I only ask. My own was so long ago that I can't remember it anymore."  
"That doesn't mean you need to know."  
He smirked.  
"You liked it, didn't you? Buried in the grief, there's a little part of you that enjoyed it."  
"Shut up," I whispered, looking away from him.  
"Hit a sore spot, did I?"  
I refused to answer, hoping he would stop. Quite the reverse; he took my silence as encouragement.  
"I don't doubt that you'll get addicted to it. It's a dangerous thing, but you end up needing it so much."  
Losing my patience, I covered his mouth with my hand, muttering to him, "Don't say another word."  
I pulled back, to the spot I'd been standing in moments before. Far from looking shocked, Lelouch looked almost sad. His eyes, the left glowing pink with his Geass, were clear and calm, all traces of the devil he could be gone.  
"You had some questions then?" he said, like nothing had happened.  
"There are a few. But I could sleep easy if I knew the answer to one."  
"Which is?"  
"Why did you give Euphie that order? Why tell her to kill all the Japanese?"  
That statement was all it really took to break past the mask. He suddenly looked tired beyond all belief. One badly-placed movement or ill-timed breath on his part would have shattered him completely.  
"I had hoped it wouldn't be that question."  
I waited. He seemed to be piecing together the right words.  
"It was a mistake on my part. It is one of the few things that I regret about my time as Zero. But what is done is done; I cannot go back and correct my mistakes."  
It was all he would say. I shook him, yelled at him, damn near begged him to explain. Lelouch stayed silent. All he did was stare at me with those infuriatingly calm eyes of his and wait for me to give up.  
"Are you done yet?" he asked, when I had finally run out of words.  
"No. I will never be done. I cannot be done. Not until I get that one answer."  
"And I have given you the only answer I can give. I don't see what you gain from being stubborn."  
"I gained the love of a good woman."  
"I'll give you that. She was a good woman."  
"She deserved better."  
"A better life? Or the love of someone worthier?"  
"Both, I suppose."  
He stared at me for a long time after I answered him.  
"You're wrong again, Suzaku," he said gently, looking away into a corner of the cell.  
"About what?"  
"Euphemia was lucky to have you. Trust me, I tried hard enough to steal you back from the Empire. I was wasting my time, I suppose."  
I stayed several more minutes, but we had both run out of things to say. I was about to leave, when a final question escaped my mouth.  
"So do you still not regret any of your choices? Knowing how much suffering they've caused."  
"I don't regret. I have no time for it."  
"You're right. You don't have time now," I said, leaving without listening for a reply.

I expected them to kill him. But they let him live, unknowing of the pain he caused as Zero, unknowing of the seeds that made Zero blossom in the shadows. I'm satisfied in that he won't cause anyone any more pain. But it makes me wonder, would I have preferred him to die, knowing who he was? It's a question I will never ask them. It's a question born of equal measures of hate and love. It's another question which I suppose I'll never get answers for.


End file.
